Yeah, he's just a bitter jealous man. He wishes his books had the success that The Witcher games have had amd just can't handle it. It doesn't help that every time he opens his mouth nothing but vitriol comes out.

If anything this guy should be working with CDPR to figure out a way to promote his books. Of course the story in the game is different or told in a different way from the books. Thats not a bad thing, it just means people can read his books for the true telling of the story. What a moron, here he has an audience hungry for The Witcher content and all he can do is be jealous of the success of another interpretation of his work. There are no words for how childish this guy is behaving.

Witcher games take place after the books, so reading the books is actually good to understand some of the plot and returning characters. I wouldn't actually want this man helping CD Projekt Red, with his awful attitude. Dude is just an a*hole.

He does have a point though: “Seeing a picture from the game on the cover of my book, many fans assumed that the game was first. And respectable fans of sci-fi and fantasy hold such derivative books in contempt …"

This is SO true. For me, at least. I can't think of anything less interesting than a cheap game-based cash-grab book with the game's art on its cover. You know, like those Halo novels or whatever. Same thing for when a book gets a movie adaptation and its cover becomes the movie poster. It completely kills the appeal of the book.

It would've been much better to just keep the original covers and not try to tie in with the game too much. The sales would be just as good and the books would've preserved their identity. I'm guessing this was the publisher's decision and not the author's, because publishers LOVE to have poor judgement and be completely disconnected from their fans.

I'm sure the author is very graceful that the games have had so much success. But he's just mad at his book's publishers for being such huge idiots

What if that doesn't matter to him? at the end of the day you could have a crapload of money but an artist many times just wants to see their concept conveyed properly.

I'm sure he has legitimate reasons for feeling the way he feels we have artists many times that are literally millionaires but still are perfectionist and still are not content until their work is almost perfect sometimes money is not anything to them.

All of that goes out of the window when you sign the rights away in the first place Edmix. He agreed to it and I'm sure he didn't have a gun pointed to his head at the time. If he was worried about his concept being conveyed properly he would have declined and just been happy just to have his books being sold, no?

Can't understand the author Andrzej Sapkowski, going against the games. Like Nivekki said, if was not for the games, i will never be able to know his work and his books here on Brazil. I just buyed the first one, and i liked it very much, so i don't understand the complaints at all. He is now reaching a LOT more potencial readers from all over the world.

I am a fan of the books and the games. I work with a man from Poland who has only read the books and adores them dearly. He is of the opinion that the video games have opened up more people to the series in both forms of media and he is thankful for it.

It's a shame the author only finds himself frustrated by the success of the video games. I can empathize that he is upset about the reputation of his work given the example he provides. I can say that the video games opened me up to reading the novels. They are superb.

Yeah I'm in the same camp. Didn't even know they were based on books until the third game came out and was a hit. Picked up two books after that. I can see why they are so highly regarded. They are phenomenal books. I think he could be wrong about the games negatively impacting his book sales. But I don't see sales numbers so who knows.

I agree with Nivekki. Without the game, the books might have been unheard of. I'm not saying they're not good in any way, in fact they are the reason the Witcher was such a great game. But I can understand why he's feeling a little bitter. Sort of.

Well there you go! His books are appreciated, and the Witcher just allows for that! I mean I guess he's upset that the Witcher will be remembered for the games, but in the end, so what? The people who read his books like them, that's what counts right?

I agree with you. I never would have known about the Witcher lore until I tried the games. I have two books and they are very good. I think games are definitely more profitable than books in this day and age. Maybe he should lean on movie deals and then make a ton of money that way if that's the issue...

I see what your saying and as a writer I can sort of validate your idea, but his comments come across as purely egocentric. If The Witcher is indeed his baby then he either should have held on to the IP for himself or put more creative limits on how CDPR could interpret his writing. But as a writer I can think of nothing better than the realization of my creation (as far as I know he's completed The Witcher) followed by an other creative entity picking up where I left off. It's representative of life and the lack of control death brings. He finished his vision of The Witcher and instead of the character getting butchered by Hollywood or some cheap product, The Witcher found new story tellers to carry on the world he created. It's not going to be what he wants it to be because hes not the one creating it, that's the freedom he's now rejecting. He could be reveling in the new stories or perspectives that the games provided but instead he's wallowing in the depths of his own ego.

His problem is that gaming punters might be more loyal and passionate about the game than readers are about his books. He took a cheque and underestimated CDPR and the gaming base. Not our problem witch boy.

It's exactly the same really. Doesn't really matter about the popularity.

Not that I feel he should be upset, unless they bastadize his story to the point of being unrecognizable, which they didn't.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who still don't know GOT is a series of books, and I don't see Martin going around upset that people don't actually know the name of the book series and simply call it by the title of the first book.

Granted, he was involved in the production of the series, so maybe it's different because of that, but he isn't upset about the deviations in the story, because he understands not everything can be exact to the books

I disagree...suprisingly a large number of people know GOT is a series of books BECAUSE of the show... episodes were being spoiled before they were being released, and spoilers were such a huge deal for so long. The books have sold 60+ million copies almost everyone who watches GOT knows who George R. R. Martin is, plus George R.R Martin was a screenwrtier for the show, and had a lot of say in the direction it would be going.

I guess that may be more due to the popularity of the television medium. I don't wish to take anything away from The Witcher, but GOT is a superbly crafted TV series, which follows the books fairly closely, captures it very well. More importantly, it's also in a more accessible format than video games, and even within video gaming, The Witcher is not as popular as GOT has become.

Up until W3, I didn't even know they were based on books. I never really followed the games much, although knew they were popular.

However, W3 isn't promoted as a game adaptation the way GOT is. This may be due to the fact that Martin is(or was) heavily involved in the production, and he often spoke about the series itself. He's also allowed the series to take it's own path, and supports it as much as he promotes the books....which I actually feels he cares less about now than he did before starting the series...but that's another topic.

When i say it's the same, I just meant from a point of view that people found out about the books, and they became more popular due to the game. Same way we saw LOTR have a surge of popularity with the movies....and there are a lot of books which saw this kind of surge due to outside formats.

So, he's just bitter of its success, but also can't tolerate the amount of ignorance that youth come to him with by them apparently not knowing that the games are based on the novels he made, similar to how Game of Thrones on HBO is an adaption of the works of Martin, of the Books he made. I mean, we can't all be anti-social hermits who have zero tolerance for stupid kids, we all have to deal with it at some point in our lives now.

The man has every right to be upset. He wrote the books and to him it's the one true version of the story. Now people would think that his books are adapting the game instead of the other way around. Artists take their crafts very seriously.

The books were incredible.I read them in between Witcher 2 and Witcher 3, and boy did I not regret investing hours into them. They also provided a lot of information that really enhanced the experience of playing the Witcher 3. How Ciri became she who she is. Numerous characters that appear in Witcher 3 such as Djikstra, Dudu, Crach an Craite, Keira Metz, Avallach were first introduced in the book series. So meeting them in the game brought forth a feeling of recognition. I especially loved the writing in the books - a lot of social and political commentary that mirrored modern times, and a mysterious style that would describe events in a way that let the reader fill in the gaps with their intelligence and imagination.

That being said, I can't see how the game series can in any way harm his books. So what if the cover has art related to the games. That's just promotional material - any serious person who is interested in reading the books will understand the books came out first, and that his books are the original source not to be conflated with the games.

As a writer, I can understand how it might annoy him to have people think his books are based on the games instead of the other way around. (Although I would disagree with his thoughts on such books... there are several adaptation novels out there that are quite good!) However... also as a writer, I sure wouldn't complain if someone made hugely-successful games based on my writing that drove countless people to check it out who otherwise might never have heard of it.

Once, I had no idea Witcher novels existed. Then a Witcher 3 trailer caught my attention, so I looked into the series, learned the games were based on books, and went and read all the books. I bet I'd have never read them without the games.

If he such a big problem with his book covers being misrepresentations of the content of the pages within, why not complain to the publisher about using art not from the game. I guess because that would hurt sales and he's just complain about that. Who knows.

Because the publisher would tell him to f off, and they would use that cover because it will drive sales. It's typical to market books like that though. Just like LOTR used the movie posters and actors to promote the numerous releases during that time, same with the HObbit, same with Game of Thrones, same with every book ever published that's made into a movie or TV show(if it's popular), because typically, after such adaptations, there is a huge surge in the book sales which often make it show up on the best sellers list once again.

Only book I can think of that didn't receive this treatment was Harry Potter series....although I'm sure there are movie plastered books out there.

I also heard of the game first which led me to play it which than led me to the books . . .but maybe in his world that's a bad thing . . .I've heard of this writer afterwards he seems to have an eccentric personality

Just last week I actually had the thought of buying The Witcher novels..

I told myself I wanted to start reading more and these were the first things that came to mind.

I mean I understand where he's coming from.. His vision of The Witcher getting mixed up with CD Projekt Red's vision of The Witcher in the eyes of fans... I can understand that being a legitimate issue for any artist.

But at the same time the games have most certainly opened up the books too many that never knew they existed...

I don't know much about books/publishing deals.. But if Andrzej Sapkowski has any control over the books then he can simply put something like "The Witcher Books Came First" on the top of each one. Kinda like the same thing as the other stuff they put on the cover.. whether it be a quote from a reviewer or whatever..

but the article said that they use CD Projekt Red's art images on the cover of the US books... so then maybe he doesn't have that much control over it...

and if that's the case then he most likely shot himself in the foot and didn't properly secure his copyrights or trademarks or whatever on The Witcher property.

are people here even reading the article???? he is taking issue with the confusion that people think the games came first and think his books are copying the game. What author wouldnt have issue with that.

Sounds like a whiney hack who is jealous that game writers wrote his own lore better then he did and in turn was more successful. You can also tell he is full of himself as his name is smack dab in the middle of the book cover in size 100 font... usually the title of the book itself takes that honor.

He is right in claiming that the game have harmed his books, but this happens in almost every case. Whenever a game, movie or tv series adopted from a book get famous, it's book cover is mostly replaced by the game, movie or series' cover. Fans too care more about what is famous rather than what was written first, so it would happen in any other case as well.